karimb Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 Teresa, Alan and Mike thank you alot for the kind comments Paul, thank you so much for the photo and taking the time to answer me... i know exactly what you mean with the job taking precedence. I just took time off of work before relocating to another country as i will be based and flying out of there starting mid december... The photo really illustrates what you said so i worked on it today and hopefully should look the part.. again thanks for taking the time to post here John my friend at the rate i am building, yes maybe i could finish half what i have in the stash before you finish your work in progress, but you Sir, on the other hand, build works of art and its only normal it takes longer to get that perfect finish you always get. Im following your stuka build and beleive me when i say its jaw dropping... In french you say 'un travaille de bijoutier' which translates to 'work of a jeweler' .... dont know if it makes the same sense but oh well. very detailed and very instructive your thread Thank you again for dropping in So to sum up today... i kept going on the rampage i started yesterday As a general outline, the 'build' part of the kit is complete along with the corrections and all. Also got the model primed and the metallics painted and then i called it a day. Theres something weird going on with this kit though. i wouldnt know how to explain it. At times i look at it and wonder if it will go on the shelf of shame and at moments it just all clears up... Anyways must be all the fumes from spraying lacquer primer with a half defective breathing mask Along the way today, alot of ugly snags reared their head up on me but nothing major... Started this morning with correcting the slat surface on the upper wings ( I read it in your post Paul ) worked out a treat. I used the back of the blade to scribe the sides of the slat surface (which is depicted wrong on the trumpeter kits and i hear the hasegawas too) until it broke free from the top part of the wing, then moved it further up flush with the top of the wing... Filled sanded and rescribed. done. some photos below Then used filler again until i got it completely smooth... to be honest i thought it would take more work than it actually did and im glad i did the correction as it would have been really visible on the finished model with the 'step' there. Now the actual slat i found to be horrible, with a capital H...no kidding. i dont know if Paul or anyone who built this kit thought the same. but some of the slat rails on mine didnt even fit...so we got the receiving end widened... then had to re 'fill' the side i took styrene off of with sheet styrene...its as if you had to move some of the slots parallel ... i hope what im saying makes sense. besides there's no positive attachment point that 'shows' you how far in you have to insert the slat rails to get the correct droop angle...i took a look at all the reference pictures i have for the slats and i guess we'll have to eyeball it after all is painted and its time to set the slats on the wings.... photo below You can see on the furthest slot on the left side how i had to widen it...i used sheet styrene after cut to size to plug the gap. on the furthest slot on the right you can see how the slat rail is actually too short...might be my kit dunno but the fit was less than desirable.... Ah and another thing, the flaps have one good sized attachment point to the wing and its the flap fairing. other than that there is a flap actuator and a flap hinge on the side so i would suggest you get them bonded pretty well before doing anything else as they are fragile. after the glue is set they get better but i almost got them broken a couple of times so be careful handling the wing. so got the wings closed up and the slats part done. i left the slats unglued to be able to get the insides and the top part of the wing where they rest painted in red... i like working in subassemblies when i can...makes work much easier. The fit of the wing to the fuselage i found to be pretty good. I used some CA as filler for the wing to fuselage join and it worked good. I was telling you about the flaps before because once the fuse and the wings are bonded you need to get at least the main gear legs on (temporary) in order to be able to rest the aircraft on table except if you want to put it there on its back while youre working on the build.... The nose gear was just held in place there so she didnt rest on her nose (due to the main gear temporarily on)... Regarding the gear (and i think the main reason for this kit to be going to the shelf of shame ) is i didnt figure a way to get the single peice molded nosewheel sorted out. not with my present skillset, not with the tools i have and not without aftermarket parts. I thought about cutting the wheel off at the pivot point, then cutting a template from a sheet of etch to build the wheel attachment part (the reversed U that hold the wheel on either side and joins the oleo strut) but then after a closer look id have to eat away at the wheel and it would be a monster job at sanding and rescribing the treadmarks and all....i dont know if it is even feasible. Then i had another idea - i thought of using a .3mm drillbit and drill holes between the tire and the inverted U (we'll call it inverted U i just cant remember the name of the component now but im sure you guys figured out what it was ) and then file the holes together to make a straight opening... turned out it wouldnt work because of the way the styrene part is cast. besides it would be impossible to do the same to the sidewalls of the rim--- so after a big sigh i gave up...even thought of starting to hack on it and keep the nosewheel from my second a4m kit in the stash as a reserve if it all went to s***, but then id be in trouble when id want to build the other one... so gave up I dont like giving up on stuff like this because there is always a solution - always - just need to come to mind Has anyone found a solution to this nosewheel issue without resorting to a resin wheel or a resin aftermarket nosewheel assembly? if so id love to hear how it was done maybe i can still manage to try it before she goes to the paint booth please So regarding the gear i left the nosewheel in its sorry state and worked on the main landing gear... they look okay with the wiring added on. i used the reference photos to get the brake/hydraulic lines correctly ( and the same for the noshweel since its a Mike it has a steering mechanism so i added the hydraulic lines for that too). Also added some wiring in the main gear wheel well for the electrics that run to the lights on the gear fairings and miscellaneous wiring (of which the use i have no clue but they were there in the references) Now we got to the weapon set that comes with the kit... After looking at the tweak list that Thierry did apparently the weapon set is also utterly c**p... i went and built a mk82 and it does look like an anorexic mk82... its misshaped and i think its beyond being fixable, so they got all binned except for the drop tanks which are correct in shape and size. Got those done... For the correction regarding those - the scribed lines on the tanks are supposed to be weldmarks and should be proud not recessed - so i tried something new for a change. i thought of using epoxy putty then roll it like a thread and set it on the scribed lines but then i thought of something easier - fishing line - At the correct gauge the fishing line worked a treat and it just sunk in the scribed lines. photo below unprimed and primed They will get the sanding treatment to look uneven before the tanks get painted... Ill post this part, continuation below mywifehatesmodels 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mywifehatesmodels Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Karim, I'm flattered by your comments, but this thread, as well as your Su-25 and Mig 29M, are a testament to your skill and I could not do any better. Don't sell yourself short! Excellent work, again. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 (edited) So all said and done i decided to give it a last push and take it in for the primer coat I used mr surfacer 1200 to get the filling and sanding mistakes to become apparent... but on the whole i thought she looked good...some little areas need a touch up which ill do tomorrow photos below Here she is with all the components primed ( and a ladder to add to the party...it came with the kit ) Tomorrow ill do the preshading on the bottom and go through the references photos again to make out where the weathering will be and if some of the skyhawks got chipping from heavy use. I already took a peak at the decals and i already found a snag to come and that will be the rudder bands... so we'll see maybe we'll get those painted instead of using a decal since this is the trend with the kits ive been building of late lol Well sorry again for the long post tonight i also got carried away with the building today although i had promised to post midday in order to make the evening post shorter than this... Thanks for taking the time to follow the build... So tomorrow she'll get her first coat of paint woooohooo... all the coming fun Stay safe and happy modeling Karim EDIT PS: I forgot to mention i also painted the exhaust can with mr metal color buffable paints iron and dark iron and buffed some areas more than others... Also painted the ifr probe end aluminum and buffed it... also painted the two guns with gun metal paint and set them aside... well thats it for tonight folks, im off to have a bite and watch a movie stay safe Karim Edited October 28, 2014 by karimb mywifehatesmodels 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 Karim, I'm flattered by your comments, but this thread, as well as your Su-25 and Mig 29M, are a testament to your skill and I could not do any better. Don't sell yourself short! Excellent work, again. John John, coming from you, i am the one who should be flattered....really Fantastic build you got going on the stuka Thank you my friend for following along and for all the continued support Karim mywifehatesmodels 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loic Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Wow Karim ! This is an other amazingly fast build my friend ... and a very good one too Looks great, keep up the good work ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 Good evening everyone Sorry im getting absorbed by working on the model during the day (and having a semblance of a normal life lol) so its going to be one update today too but this time condensed... nothing much really going on except the painting stage but ill tell you about this... So today the plan was to preshade and spray the insignia white and light gull gray... and this is what we did except we pushed on a bit more with little things So this morning i was going through my references and noticed the a4m has some sort of lense (i dont know if it is a camera or a designator or something) in a clear part on the tip of the nose, so i sat there rummaging through my tools and boxes looking for something. I also build armor in 1/35th to change pace from aircraft so i remembered i had a set of anti reflective lense coating for the stryker family ... and i found them. Its a sheet of self adhesive paper thats transparent and is supposed to mimic anti reflective coating on the periscopes of afvs and tanks so that opfor cannot blind a soldier looking through the periscope with a laser beam... and they did the job once i got in in the clear part it does have this weird sheen of orange/blueish/green depending on how you look at it in the light. and its clear too. photos below but im not sure it shows well what i mean with changes color (i find sometimes crossing experience from armour to aircraft does help specially for the weathering and washes etc) So thats done i put the part aside and prepared for the airbrushing Decided to have a variation on the preshading colors this time as the black would give too sharp a contrast under the white (which i find is a pain to coat well) so for the bottom part of the aircraft i preshaded with hull red which is a really dark brick color. For the top and sides preshading i used nato black which is a black/grey. Preshading done i painted the bottom surface insignia white which is equivalent to flat white (i'm doing all the colors flat at the moment as i will coat them with clear later on...havent decided yet if i want to keep a clear finish or satin for the end) I then masked the control surfaces on top and put some blue tack to get the soft edge delimitation between the top color and bottom color For the light gull gray as tamiya doesnt have the specific color in its acrylic range, i used a mix i got off of ipms stockholm which is FS colors to tamiya colors and its a mix of xf20 to xf2 at a ratio of one to one. Then i thought why not go on and get the red parts painted? so i masked the gull grey after it dried in order to airbrush the red areas. I used flat red for the red areas The rest will be posted below Bill Cross and mywifehatesmodels 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 so after all was dry i got the masks off and yes there were areas with a bit of overspray and that will be fixed tomorrow no worries there The exhaust nozzle is painted with iron metallizer paint from gsi creos its the buffable mr metal color line...and its just set there not glued in yet The last picture shows the anti reflective coating but i'll make sure once shes all complete to take some good photos to show you the change in reflection under the light The nosewheel is just blu tacked for the photos and the fuel tanks also just dry fitted there... Now for tomorrow's program... i decided to go with painting vs decals for all the stencils i can replace as i plan to weather those and to be honest some of the decals would be a nightmare to put down like on the rudder with all the embossed and recessed details. I plan on doing the anti reflective black part of the nose with paint, the over wing ( i think its supposed to be antislip coating) black stripes with paint and the rudder black areas with paint. I also think i am going to go for some lighter color chipping to get that nice weathered look but just in some specific areas... Im not planning on using a filter this time as there is no camo to tie together and i dont really think it would add anything as this aircraft was shipborne to my knowledge and i dont suppose you get dust accumulation on a ship But yes it will be weathered consequently with grime and the panel washes and everything... ive got some reference photos for skyhawks in service during the nam conflict so that should be of help.... Maybe if we get to finish the black parts and the detail painting we'll clearcoat her and wait and see if she dries tomorrow for the rest of the weathering process... Thank you everyone for dropping in and for the support and positive comments Stay safe and happy modeling Karim Bill Cross and mywifehatesmodels 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 Wow Karim ! This is an other amazingly fast build my friend ... and a very good one too Looks great, keep up the good work ! Thanks Loic for the comment Gotta squeeze in those builds before the 'off' time runs out and i have to go back to the real world (working lol ) Thanks for dropping in my friend Karim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Man! Great work so far Karim! I can't believe how fast this build is going!! Cheers Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mywifehatesmodels Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Moving along nicely, Karim. I love the nose. It looks great. Way to improvise! John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 (edited) Alan thank you John yup sometimes we gotta improvise im glad it turned out nice...i always value your input regarding my builds so please always point things out to me... and thank you again for dropping by. Hows your stuka build going? i check on the thread everyday and its coming along nicely. Great job So for today's update...im also sorry i did it again. didnt get time to post midday and i find its becoming a trend of me becoming lazy Today morning i started with the masking. i had a clear plan of action for the day and i find always when i have a clear plan in my mind things work out smoothly : masking then hairspray then paint then chipping then hairspray then painting another area then chipping then detail work then the clearcoat...and that just what we did... for the nose anti glare paint the masking was fine nothing hard...the anti slip areas (i think they are that, im not sure though) on the wings also nothing hard. For the rudder i thought it was going to be a long job masking and cutting the mask to shape, but after a good deal of rummaging through the toolbox i fell upon tamiya tape the exact width of the stripes wooohooo so it simplified things alot... i put down a good coat of hs on the nose and wing sections but decided i'd leave the rudder alone with the chipping. So paint dried i went for the chipping. I decided to go for a worn look since the scooters were operated pretty hard and the environment was also pretty harsh Below the nose section before and after chipping I also chipped the 'walkways' on the wings but youll see that in the photos below. Moving on i decided to spray an even more faded light gull grey over another layer of hs on specific areas like the top of the fuselage and the wings and slats where the sun and elements would lend to more fading... you can see the difference between the two wings in the photo then the completed grey chipping Last photo is of the completed chipping on the dorsal hump and the wings and top part of the horizontal stabilizers all that done and dried i went on for a first coat of clear and let her dry off while i worked on the detail painting (ah yes before that i also painted the 'barbettes' on the nose with radome beige as per the references Ill post below since im not sure i can add any more photos on this post so bear with me please Edited October 30, 2014 by karimb mywifehatesmodels and Bill Cross 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 (edited) As i was leaving her to dry off the first coat of clear i went to work on the 'breakable' bits. painted the red around the geardoors, the details and wiring i added previously and did the horrendous wheel....which if you dont look at from very close might be passable - oh well you win some you lose some what can i say lol - I also added the decals where i could add them. the one on the inside of the nosewheel gear door is not very accurate as its part of the one from the nosewheel leg and i found it to be too big in size so i cut it in half and put it there too. I used a dark brown wash to get the details to show on all the components. Note the nosewheel oleo is still masked and i will only remove the masking after the nosewheel has been glued and the flat coat put on as i painted it chrome and buffed it up really well, and im worried it would be dulled with the flatcoat All that done i went for some oil fading ( we use oils alot in armor to fade, streak, grime up and alter base colours ) Ill put up a photo of the oils i use they are made by ak interactive and theyre quite good i find but the color range is quite limited... anyways the 4 i have shown you below are the ones i use most on my models. For the other colors i just use winsor and newton oils as they thin and fade well i find, but thats just me I used those four colours for all the following photos after that i put those aside and gave the aircraft two other wet coats of clear gloss and im leaving her dry overnight. found the fuel droptanks to be dry and looking acceptable so i weathered them with oils and a brown wash and put them aside. i felt it was a waste to clearcoat them two and three times as they only have a couple of scribed lines to put a wash down on and only two decals. the yellow decal in the middle of the tanks is also from my own imagination as they are not called out for in the instructions but i found they liven up a bit the white tanks Im calling it a day then until she drys to a hard clear coat so we can work on her for the weathering pinwashes, oils and some airbrushed post shading... I hope you guys like her Please let me know what you think of the oil fading. is it too much? ... we'll see how we'll get them to tie in with the grime and dirt on the bottom part of the wings the good thing is we can always remove the fading with turps... Thanks again everyone for dropping in As always stay safe and happy modeling Karim Edited October 30, 2014 by karimb Bill Cross and mywifehatesmodels 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted October 31, 2014 Author Share Posted October 31, 2014 (edited) Hi guys... Im starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak although this was a really fun, albeit quick, work in progress. It bugs me when you get to a stage where your model is almost done and you start thinking about what youre going to do next lol Anyways i didnt post midday because there was nothing really major to post about. Things are going as planned. This morning the clear coat had dried pretty tough so i went on with the panel washes. i used a brown enamel wash for the top and bottom of the skyhawk and used a black enamel wash for the rudder in order to blend in the wash with the stripes i had painted the day before. I let all that dry then started on the decals. The decals were a bit weird with different thicknesses but overall they responded well to setting solution. i found the US roundel to be a pain to set with all the vortex generators on the top of the wing so the way i did it was to set it down on top and just cut little slits where the vortex generators are and just let the decal sink down on them with mr mark softer solution... then i repainted the vortex generators with the appropriate color hues for the roundel. It didnt turn out sharpish but it looks good enough. The washes took all the a.m and the decals from lunchtime till now its 1945 so its good. Im going to call it a day let it all settle down and tomorrow we'll get a flat coat on to tie and seal everything in. I managed to do some work on the fiddly bits (the ones i broke previously, and the unbroken ones lol) painted the pitot tubes and got them glued on, built a new antenna on the top of the vertical stabilizer (looks like an HF antenna but im not sure) from stretched sprue, painted the beacons the nav lights and the brake chute casing cap silver. Ill add the clear green/red to the beacon and nav lights tomorrow after the flat coat... and thats pretty much it for today Tomorrow the flat coat and the weathering with the oils and some post shading here and there and we'll get all the bits glued together but shes getting close to that finish line That build was quick but got loads more in the stash to go through lol hopefully that is Thats the pics of today i guess The photo before the last one i tried to show you guys how i did the wash on the wings with streaking. i didnt go for the cotton bud technique to clean up the wash when it was dry, rather i used a soft cloth with no turp on and just wiped back in the direction of the airflow to get the streaks then after that went back and tidied it up with a brush and turps. it doesnt really show well in the photo. come to think about it, neither does all the grey chipping under the gloss coat. tomorrow it will all show better with the flat coat on and better photos i hope... So the plan is to get her done tomorrow Till then, stay safe and happy modeling Karim Edited October 31, 2014 by karimb mywifehatesmodels and Bill Cross 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mywifehatesmodels Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Great weathering, Karim! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 31, 2014 Share Posted October 31, 2014 Love it !......Harv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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